Apparatus for marking and smoking meats.



No. 627,625. Patented June 27, I899. A. F. NATHAN.

APPARATUS FOR MARKING AND SMOKING MEATS.

(Application filed Jan. 17, 1899.) (No Model.) 3 Sheets-Sheet I.

No. 627,625. Patented lune 27, 1899..

A. F. NATHAN. V

APPARATUS FOR MARKING AND SMOKING MEATS.

(Application filed Jan. 17, 1899.) (No Model.) 3 Sheets-Sheet 2.

Ec$@M "m: oams PETERS on pucrouma. wumnarou. o. c

No. 627,625. Patented June 27, I899. A. F. NATHAN.

APPARATUS FOR MARKING AND SMOKING MEATS.

(Application filed Jan. 17, 1899.)

(No Model.) 3 Sheets-Sheet 3.

gzzafi I rwenfir I NITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

ALBERT F. NATHAN, OF KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.

APPARATUS FOR MA-RKING AND SMOKING MEATS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 627,625, dated June 27, 1899. Application fileddafluary 17, 1899. Serial No. 702,447. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern: 7 Be it known that I, ALBERT F. NATHAN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Kan sas City, in the county of Jackson and State of Missouri, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Apparatus for Mark ing and Smoking Meats, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to apparatus or means for applying the process or method of marking and smoking meats for which Patent No. 605,120 was issued to me on the 7th day of June, 1898; and the invent-ion consists in a novel construction of a truck provided with a series of wire shelves having formed or placed thereon projections to produce the mark or marks which it is desired to impress on the several pieces of meat, as hereinafter more fully described.

Figure l is a side elevation of one of the trucks. Fig. 2 is an end elevation of a series of the trucks arranged side by'side and show-, ing the groove in the floor by which the trucks are guided into and out of the smoke-cham ber. Fig. 3 is a transverse horizontal section of a truck on the line 00 m of Fig. 2, showing one of the shelves with the marks and meat thereon. tails of construction.

As described in my prior patent,No. 605,120, the mark is formed by laying the meat while in a fresh or soft condition on a tray, the upper surface of which 'is provided with proj ecting letters or characters corresponding to the mark to be produced or impressed on the meat, so that when the meat is laid thereon and left while being smoked or cured these raised letters or characters will form indentations in the meat, which will remain fixed therein. It was then designed to provide a separate tray or support for each separate piece of meat and to place these trays or supports on horizontal bars in the smoke-house. Such a plan is laborious, in that it requires much time and labor to handle and place each tray with its piece of meat separately on the bars.

The object of my present invention is to reduce the labor required and greatly expedite the operation. To accomplish this result, I construct a series of trucks made as Figs. 4 and 5 are views showing de- "pieces of meat.

shown in Figs. 1 and 2. These trucks con sist of a bed or frame A, mounted on two wheels B, located near the front end, and a smaller wheel O at the center of the rear end, this latter wheel being swiveled to the frame to enable the truck to be turned and guided in any desired direction. At each corner of the bed or frame A is rigidly secured an upright metal post B, and these at their upper ends are connected by cross-bars E at front andrear and by longitudinal side bars F, as clearly shown in Figs. 1 and 2. This upright frame I prefer to make of, gas or water pipe of the proper size, out to the required lengths and fastened together by couplings and screwthreads at the corners, as shown, as the same can thus be made light, strong, and cheaply.

To the inner side of the corner posts or uprights I secure a series of light L-shaped bars a, as shown in Fig. 2, these being arranged in a series along the two sides and extending from front to rear, as shown in Fig. 1, they being designed tosupport a corresponding seriesof shelves. The bars a are fastened to the posts 13 in such a manner that they can 'be adjusted vertically thereon, so as to bring the shelves which rest on the bars a closer.

thicker, and therefore requiring correspondingly more space than bacon or similar thin To accomplish this, I make on the inner side of the posts D a series of holes'h, as shown in Fig. 5, these holes having a slotat their lowerside of a size to receive the body of the bolts Z, with which the bars a are provided, as shown in Fig. 5, the bolts Z being provided with a head, as shown. It will readily be seen that when the heads of these bolts are entered in the enlarged portion of the holes 72 and their bodies dropped down into the slots the heads of the bolts will engage with the walls of the post, and thus hold the bars securely in place. To remove the bars, it is only necessary to raise them and draw the bolts out of the holes, and thus they can be adjusted as desired. The holes will be made close enough together to adapt the shelves to be placed at the proper distance apart to receive bacon or similar thin pieces of meat, and when it is desired to use them for hams or shoulders they will be adjusted accordingly. By these means the trucks are adapted to holding all the various kinds or pieces of meat tobe treated, and when the meat consists of bacon or other thin pieces a very much greater number of pieces can be placed on one truck, or, if desired, the shelves can be so adjusted that both thick and thin pieces can be placed in the same truck, thus adapting them to all the varying necessities of the various houses engaged in the business. It is obvious that other means may be used for adjusting the shelves; but the plan shown is simple and efficient, and is therefore preferred. Having thus constructed the truckbody, I then provide a series of reticulated or perforated shelves T, preferably made of a light metal frame, with wires or small rods crossing it in both directions, as shown in Fig. 3. On each of these shelves I secure the projecting letters or characters which are to form the marks on the meat, care being taken to so locate and arrange them on the shelf that when the shelf is covered with hams or other pieces of meat each ham or piece of meat will rest upon one only of these markforming projecting letters, words, or characters, as shown in Fig. 3. These marks or designs, which may be of any style or character preferred, and which of course will vary with each house or company using them and also with the various kinds of meat, may be made separate from the shelves, as represented in Fig. 4.

The letters or characters which constitute the mark I usually make of large wire or small metal rods bent into the proper shape or form, and if the design or mark consists of more than one letter or character I connect them by a finer wire or by small strips of metal secured to their under side by rivets or solder, as preferred.

Each mark is provided on its under side with two or more pins 6, adapted to fit into the meshes or holes in the shelf, and thus hold the mark in place. By this construction it will be seen that the individual marks or designs can be changed in position on the shelf and be placed closer togetheror farther apart and be arranged lengthwise or crosswise of the shelf, as shown in Fig. 3, so as to adapt them to the varying sizes of the pieces of meat, whatever these may be.

In practice some of the shelves which will be used continually for one particular kind of meatas, for instance, hams or shoulders, which vary but little in sizewill preferably have the marks or designs permanently fastened in place, while others will be provided with them made detachable, or, if preferred, part may be permanently secured to the shelves and part be detachable.

Each truck is provided with a set of the shelves more or less in number, according to the height of the frame, nine being shown in the left-hand truck in Fig. 2. The truck and shelves may be made of any size required, the only limit being the size that can be conveniently moved when fully loaded. \Vhen made of a size suflicient to hold eighteen hams on each shelf and nine shelves in a truck, it will be seen that each truck will hold one hundred and sixty-two shoulders or pieces of bacon and that all of these can be shoved together into or drawn from the smoke-chamber at once, thus greatly expediting the operation and requiring much less space than when the meat is hung up by strings, as was the former custom, besides saving the time and labor necessary to put in, tie, and subsequently remove the strings. To load these trucks, all the shelves, except the lower one, may be removed and the lower shelf then covered with the hams or other pieces of meat, (one being shown partly covered in Fig. 3,) after which another shelf will be inserted and covered, and so on until all the shelves have been inserted and covered with pieces of meat, when the loaded truck is ready to be run into the smoke-chamber. It is obvious, however, that the meat may be placed on the shelves before they are slid into the truck, if desired for any reason, though the former is the preferred plan.

The smoke house or chamber, one end of which is shown in vertical section and indicated by the letter H in Fig. 1 and transversely in Fig. 2, has its floor or sill at the entrance provided with grooves G of the proper size to serve as guides for the wheels of the trucks; and within ,the chambers are provided with a series of trough-shaped rails I resting on girders and extending in parallel lines the entire length of the chambers, so that a large number of trucks can be run in on each of these tracks, the tracks being arranged side by side the whole width of the chamber, as represented in Fig. 2. It will thus be seen that a large amount of meat can be marked and smoked in a comparatively small chamber. These smoke-houses are usually constructed with several tiers or stories of rails arranged one above another, as indicated in Fig. 1, where two such tiers are shown, an elevator being arranged to raise the trucks to and lower them from the various tiers orstories. This construction of the smoke house or chamber, however, forms no part of the present invention, as these trucks may be used in other smoke-houses, and the reference herein to the special construction of the smoke house or chamber is only to better illustrate the best manner of using the trucks.

The great benefit arising from the use of these improved trucks by the saving of time and labor will be obvious to any one at all familiar with the business of preparing smoked meats, which has grown to be an enormousbusiness, and need not, therefore, be further described.

I am aware that trucks of various kinds acters being removable and capable of application at different points on the shelf, whereby various designs may be used, and their relative position or arrangement on the shelf may be varied at will.

In Witness whereof I hereunto set my hand in the presence of two witnesses.

ALBERT F. NATHAN.

Witnesses:

H. A. WILLSON,

E. B. FLETCHER. 

